The Contribution of Walking to School in Students’ Physical Activity and Its Effect on Being Overweight

Abstract

Introduction and Aim. According to a common belief, overweight students are less active than their nonoverweight peers. However, it is unclear whether overweight students who walk to school accumulate the minimum recommended moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) on school trips. In addition, the extent to which walking to school contributes to the MVPA of the population of overweight students has not been studied yet. Accordingly, the present study was aimed at finding whether students’ inactivity in traveling to school was associated with their being overweight and whether overweight students were more autodependent. This study further evaluated the differences in the active travels of overweight and nonoverweight students and whether insufficient physical activity (PA) in school trips is associated with overweight. Finally, the contribution of walking to school to the MVPA of overweight students was also assessed. Results. The findings of this research showed that being overweight is a concerning issue even in a small-sized and lightly populated city such as Bandar-Turkmen, Iran. Most students (90%) did not perform the required minimum daily activity when commuting to school. Further, overweight could be found even among those students who walked more than one hour to commute to school. The contribution of walking to school to the MVPA of overweight students was found to be low on school days and throughout the year. Counterintuitively, the situation is even worse for nonoverweight students. Conclusion. The population of overweight students was more active compared to nonoverweight students in general, although they still suffered from excess weight since walking distances were short and not all days were school days. Thus, encouraging students to walk to school is necessary, while it is not sufficient alone as a single measure. Moreover, we recommend that all students should perform extra PA at home, school, or other places, on both school days and all other days of the year.